The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

The following night a merry English party dined together on board Lord E——'s boat, as it lay moored off the Isle of Rhoda; conversation had sunk into silence as the calm night came on; a faint breeze floated perfumes from the gardens over the star-lit Nile; a dreamy languor seemed to pervade all nature, and even the city lay hushed in deep repose, when suddenly a boat, crowded with dark figures, among which arms gleamed, shot out from one of the arches of the palace.

It paused under the opposite bank, where the water rushed deep and gloomily along, and for a moment a white figure glimmered among that boat's dark crew; there was a slight movement and a faint splash, and then the river flowed on as merrily as if poor Fatima still sang her Georgian song to the murmur of its waters.

I was riding one evening along the water-side. There was no sound except the ripple of the waves and the heavy flapping of a pelican's wing. As I paused to contemplate the scene an Egyptian passed me hurriedly, with a bloody knife in his hand. His dress was mean and ragged, but his countenance was one that the father of Don Carlos might have worn. He never raised his eyes as he passed by; and my groom, who just then came up, told me he had slain his wife, and was going to her father's village to denounce her.

VI.—Djouni and Lady Hester Stanhope

One morning we were already in motion as the sun rose over Lebanon. We passed for some miles through mulberry gardens, and over a dangerous rocky pass, where Antiochus the Great defeated the Egyptians, in 218 B.C. This pass would have required the best exertions and courage of a European horse, yet a file of camels was ascending it with the same patient look that they wear in their native deserts. Though forced frequently to traverse mountains in a country whose commerce is conducted by their means, these animals are only at their ease upon the sandy plain. The Arabs say, that if you were to ask a camel which he preferred—travelling up or down hill, his answer would be, "May the curse of Allah light on both!"

The road was only a steep and rocky path, which, in England, a goat would be considered active if he could traverse. Our horses, nevertheless, went along it at a canter, though the precipice sometimes yawned beneath our outside stirrup, while the inner one knocked fire out of the rocky cliff. Rocks, tumbled from the mountain, lay strewn about and nearly choked up the narrow river bed; over these we scrambled, climbed, and leaped in a manner that only Arab horses would attempt or could accomplish.

It was late when we came in sight of two conical hills, on one of which stands the village of Djouni, on the other a circular wall over which dark trees were waving, and this was the place in which Lady Hester Stanhope had finished her strange and eventful career. It had been formerly a convent, but the Pasha of Acre had given it to the "Prophet Lady," and she had converted its naked walls into palaces, its wilderness into gardens. The sun was setting as we entered the enclosure. The buildings that constituted the palace were of a very scattered and complicated description, covering a wide space, but only one storey in height; courts and gardens, stables and sleeping-rooms, halls of audience and ladies' bowers, were strangely intermingled.

Here fountains once played in marble basins, and choice flowers bloomed; but now it presented a scene of melancholy desolation. Our dinner was spread on the floor in Lady Hester's favourite apartment; her deathbed was our sideboard, her furniture our fuel; her name our conversation. Lady Hester Stanhope was niece to Mr. Pitt, and seems to have possessed or acquired something of his indomitable energy and proud self-reliance during the time that she presided over his household. Soon after his death she left England. For some time she was at Constantinople, where her magnificence and near alliance to the great minister gained her considerable influence. Afterwards she passed into Syria.

Many of the people of that country, excited by the achievements of Sir Sidney Smith, looked on her as a princess who had come to prepare the way for the expected conquest of their land by the English. Her influence increased through the prestige created by her wealth and magnificence, as well as by her imperious character and dauntless bravery. She believed in magic, astrology, and, incredible as it may appear, in her own divine mission.

She had two mares which were held sacred by herself and her attendants. One was singularly marked by a natural saddle. The animal was never mounted, but reserved for some divinity whom she was to accompany on his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The other was retained for her own "mount" on the same remarkable occasion.